By Donald H. Harrison
EL CAJON, California — Had this been Broadway, they’d be extending all the actors’ contracts and passing around the bubbly to celebrate the hit on their hands. In that Lost in Yonkers had quite a successful opening at Grossmont College’s Stagehouse Theatre on Thursday night, May 3, they have reason to celebrate, but, alas, extending the production will be out of the question.
Grossmont students, including members of the cast and crew, all will be taking their final examinations before the end of this month, so of necessity, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play’s engagement must be limited. Written by Neil Simon and locally directed by Jeannette Thomas, the comedic drama will continue only through next weekend, closing on Saturday evening, May 12.
The cast is well-balanced, with all seven actors turning in professional-grade performances, from teenage brothers Arty (Zachary Bunshaft) and Jay (Jacob Gardenswartz) to the slightly off-balance yet incredibly perceptive Aunt Bella (Layla Stuckey), to the indomitable Grandma (Kate Hewitt), and the street-savvy but soft-hearted Uncle Louie (Ryan Casselman). And plaudits go as well to two cast members who played their more minor roles to the hilt, Aunt Gert (Katherine Bothwell, who had many of us breathing our sentences out and in at play’s end trying to imitate her) and the boy’s often-weepy father Eddie (Joel Gossett.)
Because the father needed to go on the road to sell scrap steel during World War II so he could get himself out of debt to a loan shark, and because the boy’s mother had died of cancer, brothers Arty, 13 1/2 and Jay, 15 1/2 need to be parked in the Yonkers apartment of their grandmother, a German Jewish immigrant who believes strictly in work and rules.
Never in anyone’s memory has Grandma ever shown affection for anyone, and she doesn’t plan to start with these boys, whom she quickly conscripts to work downstairs to stand guard over the candy, pretzels and pistachio nuts, which have a habit of disappearing.
Artie and Jay (whom Grandma insists on calling “Yaacov”) join their father’s sister, scatter-brained Aunt Bella, under Grandma’s roof. Bella, portrayed energetically and endearingly by Stuckey, enlists the boys in plotting exactly how to tell Grandma her “secret” — that she plans to marry an illiterate usher at the local movie theatre and maybe open a restaurant with him.
Another of Grandma’s living children, gun-toting, zoot-suited Uncle Louie comes one night to hide in the apartment, and he has a secret too: mobsters think maybe he’s been breathing free air for too long. In one hilarious scene, while he’s trying to make his getaway, Bella is demanding that he stay seated exactly in a certain chair, just as she dreamed he would.
Unlikely role models, the aunt and uncle nevertheless provide the boys affection as well as some relief from the stern Grandma, whose face might break if she ever smiled.
While there are numerous light moments in the production — how could a Neil Simon play be otherwise? — the denouement, which comes in a sizzling and self-revelatory argument between Bella and Grandma, make for gripping theatre.
Technically, the play showed the depth of Grossmont College’s 50-year-old theatre arts program. Glenn Miller music and radio broadcasts of news from the war front kept the audience interested during black outs required for the minor scene changes on the single set, which consisted of an arm chair for Grandma, a pull out couch for the boys, and a small dining room table. Side by side doors on one side of the stage led to a bathroom and a bedroom. On the other side of the stage, a door led in and out of the apartment and down the stairs to Grandma’s store.
Clothing of the 1940s era, including knee pants for Artie, and a potato sack with frills for Aunt Bella (supposedly of her design), were fashioned by a talented group of students. Even when Grandma made the boys save the cost of electricity by turning off the lights, soft overhead lighting allowed the audience to see the boys (and at times their uncle) as they whispered their conversations atop the same pull out couch.
With budget cuts squeezing all departments of public colleges and universities, staging high quality plays like this one will prove increasingly difficult unless private donors interested in promoting the future of the arts get behind such programs at Grossmont College’s Theatre Arts.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com